Fishing Nets

In the wee hours one morning in 2006, the trawler Infidel sank off the southern end of Santa Catalina Island, taking several tons of squid and a 9,000-pound fishing net down with it. The Infidel came to rest on its keel, about 150 feet under the sea. But in the turbid currents, the fine-mesh hemp and polypropylene net -- 40 feet high, several hundred feet long and made to last thousands of years -- wrapped itself around the wreck and became a deadly snare for marine life.

California Fish and Game Commission President James W. Kellogg intervened in the criminal sentencing of a San Francisco Bay herring fisherman, telling authorities in a letter that his "good friend" has "suffered enough and that no additional punishment is warranted at this time." The intervention of Kellogg, a Concord-based labor-union negotiator who was appointed two years ago by former Gov. Gray Davis, was unsuccessful.

Superior Court Judge Martin Tangeman upheld a state Department of Fish and Game rule that bans fishing nets in the shallow waters along California's Central Coast. The rule in waters less than 360 feet deep is aimed at protecting sea otters and other mammals from drowning. A group of Morro Bay fishermen sued to have the rule overturned, and a trial was held July 1. The San Luis Obispo County judge issued his ruling July 11.

Mark Ward won't soon forget the look of distress so apparent in the eyes of the floundering whale -- large, hopeful eyes that met his after he'd dived in and attempted to cut away a large net in which the cow and her calf had become perilously entangled.

Fishers who ply the waters off the Southern California coast for lucrative swordfish and thresher shark are worried that their livelihoods will be cut back by a federal move to protect whales and other mammals caught in drift nets.